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runkefer's review against another edition
3.0
An audacious premise, and a promising beginning. But not so much of a story. It was a very interesting thought experiment that turned into an ensemble narrative, but ultimately dispersed into vagueness. The writing was good.
minarette's review against another edition
merricatct's review against another edition
4.0
I was waffling between three and four stars, since I just don't know how I feel about this book, but the fact that it's got me thinking about it to this extent tipped it into four-star range. This was a fever dream of a book - I feel like I just spent 40 days parched in a desert cave along with the characters, not sure what's real and what's imaginary. I love Jim Crace's writing style and way with language, but this subject matter lent a whole new level of weirdness and magic to the words.
I was intending to use this as my "set in the Middle East" prompt, but because of Musa, I've decided to use this as my "character you hate" prompt.
2016 reading challenge: a book with a character that you hate
I was intending to use this as my "set in the Middle East" prompt, but because of Musa, I've decided to use this as my "character you hate" prompt.
2016 reading challenge: a book with a character that you hate
stuedb's review against another edition
3.0
There is no doubt that this is a well written piece of fiction, he manages to describe mundane life in the wilderness with beauty, elegance and humour. Some of the descriptions are a joy to behold.
However that being said I found Musa so despicable that I can’t say I enjoyed it, I just don’t understand why the others didn’t just kill him. It’s not so much a retelling of Jesus’s 40 days and 40 nights in the desert as he was such a small part in the story. But I guess that’s the point (isn’t it?), that it is a fairly common rite of passage. Following in the footsteps of their predecessors, sleeping in caves and living off whatever they can find in the desert. Each pilgrim has a different reason for heading to the desert be it to pray for fertility as is Marta’s case or a cure for illness or spiritual enlightenment. It just so happens that one of the people this particular year is Jesus, not that we see or hear much of him in this novel.
On the whole I found it a bit of a chore to get through despite the excellent writing.
However that being said I found Musa so despicable that I can’t say I enjoyed it, I just don’t understand why the others didn’t just kill him. It’s not so much a retelling of Jesus’s 40 days and 40 nights in the desert as he was such a small part in the story. But I guess that’s the point (isn’t it?), that it is a fairly common rite of passage. Following in the footsteps of their predecessors, sleeping in caves and living off whatever they can find in the desert. Each pilgrim has a different reason for heading to the desert be it to pray for fertility as is Marta’s case or a cure for illness or spiritual enlightenment. It just so happens that one of the people this particular year is Jesus, not that we see or hear much of him in this novel.
On the whole I found it a bit of a chore to get through despite the excellent writing.
nghia's review against another edition
3.0
Though I knew it didn't actually have anything to do with pandemics, I started reading this solely based on its title. It felt appropriate in these corona-virus times.
Quarantine is a strange little book. It was a finalist for the Booker Prize and won some other awards. And I found it unimpressive, only marginally redeemed by two fantastic chapters early on and a handful of well-written scenes scattered throughout. I wonder if it is that, because, I am so unreligious that story lacks resonance? I literally had no idea what biblical story this is a retelling of. I had to look it up on Wikipedia.
Apparently after Jesus was baptised he spent 40 days fasting in the Judean wilderness and being tempted by the devil. This was the Temptation of Jesus Christ. Jim Crace takes a (kinda, sorta, for the most party) atheistic/scientific approach in his retelling. Jesus is a devout man, to be sure. But it is also (kinda, sorta) clear that he's not the Jesus of the Bible, practicing miracles left and right. He is tempted, not by the literal Devil, but by Musa, a greedy, selfish, violent merchant.
Some of the things that left me underwhelmed: Jesus and Musa (the Devil) don't actually interact at all. That might be okay as a metaphor (Jesus was unsullied by the devil, they inhabit separate spheres) or part of the atheist storytelling schtick (obviously the Devil didn't show up in the Judean wilderness for 40 days running...) ... but it also kind of neutered the book.
The book primarily focuses on the six other nearby people. But, stripped of Jesus as a prime character, it ends up feeling like a (kind of pointless) historical fiction camping story more than anything else.
If the book had really leaned in hard on showing the suffering of the 40 days of quarantine (in, say, the way [b:Life of Pi|4214|Life of Pi|Yann Martel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320562005l/4214._SY75_.jpg|1392700] did something similar about being stranded at sea) that could have been an interesting take. Instead the first half of the book is devoted to their first day. Then there's a time skip to day 14 or so. Then another time skip to day 33 or so. The end. There is a long chapter of Jesus failing mentally & physically but it was a point in time snapshot rather than a process.
As an aside: what the hell was the point of Musa's really long and boring story about the monkeys? It felt like the single longest passage in the entire book. And Musa himself admitted it was pointless.
Another aside: I didn't appreciate all the little "biblical easter eggs" like the above scattered throughout the book. Or here's another one:
I didn't quite understand what they were supposed to be for. Are they foreshadowing suggesting that, despite the atheist/scientific veneer this is actually a mystical story about the literal son of God who is just about to embark on a career of dispensing miracles? The weird stuff in the last chapter certainly opens it to that interpretation. But all that weird stuff kind of came out of nowhere, too. (And the burning bush comes from Exodus and had nothing to do with Jesus.)
Given all the above, I was sorely tempted to give this 2-stars. But it had a few sections that I thought were really great writing, especially when Musa first starts bartering with newly arrived religious quaratinees. Maybe if I were more steeped in a culture of Bible stories, it would have had more resonance and meaning for me.
Quarantine is a strange little book. It was a finalist for the Booker Prize and won some other awards. And I found it unimpressive, only marginally redeemed by two fantastic chapters early on and a handful of well-written scenes scattered throughout. I wonder if it is that, because, I am so unreligious that story lacks resonance? I literally had no idea what biblical story this is a retelling of. I had to look it up on Wikipedia.
Apparently after Jesus was baptised he spent 40 days fasting in the Judean wilderness and being tempted by the devil. This was the Temptation of Jesus Christ. Jim Crace takes a (kinda, sorta, for the most party) atheistic/scientific approach in his retelling. Jesus is a devout man, to be sure. But it is also (kinda, sorta) clear that he's not the Jesus of the Bible, practicing miracles left and right. He is tempted, not by the literal Devil, but by Musa, a greedy, selfish, violent merchant.
He was shoeless, homeless, without food. He'd slept on naked ground. But he wat last without fear or sorrow. "Am I not free?" he asked himself.
Some of the things that left me underwhelmed: Jesus and Musa (the Devil) don't actually interact at all. That might be okay as a metaphor (Jesus was unsullied by the devil, they inhabit separate spheres) or part of the atheist storytelling schtick (obviously the Devil didn't show up in the Judean wilderness for 40 days running...) ... but it also kind of neutered the book.
The book primarily focuses on the six other nearby people. But, stripped of Jesus as a prime character, it ends up feeling like a (kind of pointless) historical fiction camping story more than anything else.
If anything could happen, then it would. The good, not just the bad.
If the book had really leaned in hard on showing the suffering of the 40 days of quarantine (in, say, the way [b:Life of Pi|4214|Life of Pi|Yann Martel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320562005l/4214._SY75_.jpg|1392700] did something similar about being stranded at sea) that could have been an interesting take. Instead the first half of the book is devoted to their first day. Then there's a time skip to day 14 or so. Then another time skip to day 33 or so. The end. There is a long chapter of Jesus failing mentally & physically but it was a point in time snapshot rather than a process.
He had no end for it, not yet. There was no point to it, except to charm.
As an aside: what the hell was the point of Musa's really long and boring story about the monkeys? It felt like the single longest passage in the entire book. And Musa himself admitted it was pointless.
The bushes were the first to flare. Blue flames, and then grey smoke as what little sap there was inside the stems bubbled out of the wood.
Another aside: I didn't appreciate all the little "biblical easter eggs" like the above scattered throughout the book. Or here's another one:
Musa shouted to his new companions. "Look there," he said. "That's the one I mentioned to you. The healer. Risen from the grave."
I didn't quite understand what they were supposed to be for. Are they foreshadowing suggesting that, despite the atheist/scientific veneer this is actually a mystical story about the literal son of God who is just about to embark on a career of dispensing miracles? The weird stuff in the last chapter certainly opens it to that interpretation. But all that weird stuff kind of came out of nowhere, too. (And the burning bush comes from Exodus and had nothing to do with Jesus.)
Given all the above, I was sorely tempted to give this 2-stars. But it had a few sections that I thought were really great writing, especially when Musa first starts bartering with newly arrived religious quaratinees. Maybe if I were more steeped in a culture of Bible stories, it would have had more resonance and meaning for me.
mikewomack's review against another edition
4.0
After the disappointment that was The Pesthouse, I was pleasantly surprised by Quarantine. Each character had defining qualities that made the novel move forward. I thought it was interesting that Jesus was featured in the story but not really the main character. See, normally the Son of God gets first billing. But the novel wasn’t about Him or His work. Very interesting. The story had a definite starting point and a definite ending, something that The Pesthouse didn’t have. Overall, it’s a pretty good read.
trendingline221's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
jayshay's review against another edition
3.0
Giving things up, making a sacrifice to better oneself -- the idea that the spirit benefits from the renunciation of the merely physical. Five characters go into the wilderness - each one seeking something. But a warning, one of them is named Jesus.
(I should insert here that I picked this up cold at the book store and didn't realize that Jesus was going to be a character in the book. Historical personages as main characters in novels usually give me a pain, but I enjoyed Crace's language so I continued on.)
Yup, the big J himself makes his presence felt in this novel and by the second half pretty much takes over, which is a shame because I thought the rest of the characters and their own small scale struggles were pretty interesting. Crace tries to batten down Jesus, make him a confused, idealistic, romantic young man -- but Jesus Christ! he's Jesus and all the accumulated tradition of Christendom pretty much swamps what happens with the young Galilean. At a certain point I was shaking my head because the novel reminded me of the latest Star Trek reboot -- will Crace mess with the traditional time-line and let J die in his cave or will he let J live to complete what happens in the original series (you know those books in the bible). Well, he does a little of both, but really all this wiggling spoiled what would have been a stronger book about the lost souls in the other caves, nasty the Merchant who exploits them and his abused wife Miri.
(I should insert here that I picked this up cold at the book store and didn't realize that Jesus was going to be a character in the book. Historical personages as main characters in novels usually give me a pain, but I enjoyed Crace's language so I continued on.)
Yup, the big J himself makes his presence felt in this novel and by the second half pretty much takes over, which is a shame because I thought the rest of the characters and their own small scale struggles were pretty interesting. Crace tries to batten down Jesus, make him a confused, idealistic, romantic young man -- but Jesus Christ! he's Jesus and all the accumulated tradition of Christendom pretty much swamps what happens with the young Galilean. At a certain point I was shaking my head because the novel reminded me of the latest Star Trek reboot -- will Crace mess with the traditional time-line and let J die in his cave or will he let J live to complete what happens in the original series (you know those books in the bible). Well, he does a little of both, but really all this wiggling spoiled what would have been a stronger book about the lost souls in the other caves, nasty the Merchant who exploits them and his abused wife Miri.
blackoxford's review
5.0
Alone But Never Lonely
Quarantine is Crace’s very appropriate term for Jesus’s forty days seclusion in the wilderness shortly after his baptism in the Jordan River. According to all of the synoptic gospels, he is ‘approved’ by God in his earthly mission at that ceremony. Forty days in the life of an individual (or forty years in the life of a people) is an important biblical poetical trope, which Crace appreciates as exactly what it is: a period of fundamental transformation in the nature of one’s being. The literary context of the forty days is important in order to understand Crace’s interpretation of the story.
Forty days as a spiritually significant period first appears in the book of Genesis. It is the period of persistent rain which wipes out the creation that has disappointed YHWH. It appears that YHWH was banking on a bit of high-speed natural selection. Noah’s family were spared his (later regretted) purge but had to undergo a double dose of purification - forty days of rain and forty days of drying out. One can only speculate about the ethical quality of human beings if the original gene pool had survived intact.
Although several of the patriarchs only marry at forty years of age, suggesting a period of maturation rather than purification, the cultural significance of forty years is established clearly by Israel’s wandering in the desert of Sinai after their escape from Egypt. During this period they are fed on the miraculously provided ‘manna,’ perhaps signifying the necessity for preparing to enter the promised land. Noah’s purification affected all of humanity; the desert wandering was an entirely Jewish affair.
While the Jewish nation was being held captive in Egypt, Moses spends forty days on the mountain of Horeb conferring with YHWH, the results of which are freedom and the tablets of the law. There may have been some spiritual purification or preparation involved but this is not reported in the biblical text. Rather Moses’s experience is purely revelatory. Legends suggest some sort of conference with the divine presence but its character is unknown. One further reference to forty days, also at the mountain of Horeb, is made regarding the time of penance by the prophet Elijah.
Finally there are three more uses of the period of forty years - the first for the time required to purify pagan lands before they can be settled by Israel; the second is the period of captivity of the Israelites by the Philistines as a punishment for disobedience; the last is as a period of punishment declared by the prophet Ezekiel on the land of Egypt.
So, as in much of biblical literature, Jesus’s sojourn in the wilderness doesn’t have an historically fixed significance. It is open to a variety of interpretations, of which Crace’s seems as informed and valid as many others. The New Testament story is clearly important and transmitted with variations through at least several of the Christ-following traditions. But it’s connotations run from radical purging, to spiritual renewal, to preparation for divine revelation, to the imposition of suffering as punishment.
It’s safe to assume that all these possibilities were known to the early transmitters of Christian tradition, and used to establish Jesus as the new Noah, the new ‘bread of life’, the new Moses, the prophet announcing a new Israel, and the messiah who was to undergo sacrificial punishment for the sins of Israel and the rest of the world. The forty days, therefore, designating a time of transformation, is of central importance in Christianity.
The use of the term ‘quarantine’ adds a new dimension to the forty days experience. While you’re in a state of disease, you are prevented from infecting others; but you may not make it out alive yourself. Quarantine represents a kind of existential threat which Crace’s Jesus is aware of: “He'd put his trust in god, as young men do. He would encounter god or die, that was the nose and tail of it. That's why he'd come.” Whatever happened at the Jordan was enough to inspire this idealistic and potentially deadly pilgrimage, but it wasn’t enough to convince Jesus that he knew what he was doing.
Jesus shares his quarantine with six others, four volunteers like himself and a hapless couple, she heavily pregnant and he an abusive monster. This group doesn’t conform with biblical prototypes which apply either to individuals or national groups. The randomness of this small collective is noteworthy as an innovative departure by Crace. It allows a social interaction among strangers into the depths of the forty days experience, whatever that experience entails.
Each member of the quarantined party has a unique issue: a Jewish matron, possibly infertile; an elderly Jewish stonemason hoping for a miracle cancer-cure; a Bedouin shepherd, apparently mad; a handsome blond foreigner seeking holy wisdom rather than god; the couple which had been abandoned by their caravanserai, she longing for freedom, he for wealth and power; and of course Jesus, whose encounter with god was dependent in his mind on the endurance of physical punishment. For him “Triumph over hardship was their proof of holiness.”
Crace creates an interesting spiritual logic for Jesus’s presence in the wilderness. For Jesus, god is the creator and guarantor of orderliness in the universe. His choice is to believe in cosmic-order rather than pandemonium. The wilderness with its harsh climate, its absence of edible plant-life and its general inhospitableness to life is God’s work yet to be completed. He just hasn’t got to it yet. It is “the edge of god's unfinished universe.” There Jesus could observe the divine creative process in action. This would be the sign he was looking for - his participation in the new creation. He wanted his god tangible.
Jesus’s intention is to isolate himself even within the isolation ward of his companions. He, like Moses and Elijah, wants alone-time with god. But his colleagues have different ideas. None of them has any interest in this tangible divinity nonsense. All they want are improvements in their situations not any sort of Sinaitic epiphany. So they annoy him, meddle in his solitude, harass him with trivial concerns, and interrupt his planned ritual.
In short, Crace’s Jesus is a religious snob who has no time for the worries and mundane concerns of the hoi pilloi, a type that would later be ridiculed as Pharasaic simply because they were punctilious in their observance of the law. But this is how he had been raised in a traditional Jewish household. These are the things that made him what he was - a devout servant of the Almighty who was keen to attract his favour - and what he hoped to become - a renowned preacher and interpreter of the law. Something considerably more than a village tradesman’s son.
They were a superstitious lot, Jesus forty days companions. When it suited, they had an eye for miracles and ‘angel births’ of unmarried mothers, the potency of dreams to shape reality, the demonic source of illness. He learns these things from them. But these are incidental to his real transformation, which has principally to do with his discovery that god, to the extent he exists, is present in them; that they are the source of his own re-creation; that without them his beliefs and ritual practices are useless, merely distracting self-delusions.
I think Crace’s intuition about the forty days is correct: Its power is profoundly transformative. In particular, its outcome cannot be anticipated. What is changed is an appreciation of what it means to exist as a person. The combination of isolation, physical hardship and an attitude of openness to change in the status quo produces not just change but changed expectations - about ourselves as well as about the world in general.
It is Jesus’s acceptance of the experiences of the others who are part of his forty days experience that is the catalyst for his new life in public. He ultimately knows himself, not the wilderness, to be the object of continuing creation; and the means of that continuing creation is other people, even the bad, crazy, and troubled ones, especially the bad, crazy, and troubled ones. This conclusion and the religious life it implies is as much a surprise to him as it is to his family and acquaintances. His forty days includes all previous biblical experiences as well - from Noah to Ezekiel, from purification to penance. In this sense at least Crace’s Jesus has become the entirety of the law and the prophets.
Quarantine is Crace’s very appropriate term for Jesus’s forty days seclusion in the wilderness shortly after his baptism in the Jordan River. According to all of the synoptic gospels, he is ‘approved’ by God in his earthly mission at that ceremony. Forty days in the life of an individual (or forty years in the life of a people) is an important biblical poetical trope, which Crace appreciates as exactly what it is: a period of fundamental transformation in the nature of one’s being. The literary context of the forty days is important in order to understand Crace’s interpretation of the story.
Forty days as a spiritually significant period first appears in the book of Genesis. It is the period of persistent rain which wipes out the creation that has disappointed YHWH. It appears that YHWH was banking on a bit of high-speed natural selection. Noah’s family were spared his (later regretted) purge but had to undergo a double dose of purification - forty days of rain and forty days of drying out. One can only speculate about the ethical quality of human beings if the original gene pool had survived intact.
Although several of the patriarchs only marry at forty years of age, suggesting a period of maturation rather than purification, the cultural significance of forty years is established clearly by Israel’s wandering in the desert of Sinai after their escape from Egypt. During this period they are fed on the miraculously provided ‘manna,’ perhaps signifying the necessity for preparing to enter the promised land. Noah’s purification affected all of humanity; the desert wandering was an entirely Jewish affair.
While the Jewish nation was being held captive in Egypt, Moses spends forty days on the mountain of Horeb conferring with YHWH, the results of which are freedom and the tablets of the law. There may have been some spiritual purification or preparation involved but this is not reported in the biblical text. Rather Moses’s experience is purely revelatory. Legends suggest some sort of conference with the divine presence but its character is unknown. One further reference to forty days, also at the mountain of Horeb, is made regarding the time of penance by the prophet Elijah.
Finally there are three more uses of the period of forty years - the first for the time required to purify pagan lands before they can be settled by Israel; the second is the period of captivity of the Israelites by the Philistines as a punishment for disobedience; the last is as a period of punishment declared by the prophet Ezekiel on the land of Egypt.
So, as in much of biblical literature, Jesus’s sojourn in the wilderness doesn’t have an historically fixed significance. It is open to a variety of interpretations, of which Crace’s seems as informed and valid as many others. The New Testament story is clearly important and transmitted with variations through at least several of the Christ-following traditions. But it’s connotations run from radical purging, to spiritual renewal, to preparation for divine revelation, to the imposition of suffering as punishment.
It’s safe to assume that all these possibilities were known to the early transmitters of Christian tradition, and used to establish Jesus as the new Noah, the new ‘bread of life’, the new Moses, the prophet announcing a new Israel, and the messiah who was to undergo sacrificial punishment for the sins of Israel and the rest of the world. The forty days, therefore, designating a time of transformation, is of central importance in Christianity.
The use of the term ‘quarantine’ adds a new dimension to the forty days experience. While you’re in a state of disease, you are prevented from infecting others; but you may not make it out alive yourself. Quarantine represents a kind of existential threat which Crace’s Jesus is aware of: “He'd put his trust in god, as young men do. He would encounter god or die, that was the nose and tail of it. That's why he'd come.” Whatever happened at the Jordan was enough to inspire this idealistic and potentially deadly pilgrimage, but it wasn’t enough to convince Jesus that he knew what he was doing.
Jesus shares his quarantine with six others, four volunteers like himself and a hapless couple, she heavily pregnant and he an abusive monster. This group doesn’t conform with biblical prototypes which apply either to individuals or national groups. The randomness of this small collective is noteworthy as an innovative departure by Crace. It allows a social interaction among strangers into the depths of the forty days experience, whatever that experience entails.
Each member of the quarantined party has a unique issue: a Jewish matron, possibly infertile; an elderly Jewish stonemason hoping for a miracle cancer-cure; a Bedouin shepherd, apparently mad; a handsome blond foreigner seeking holy wisdom rather than god; the couple which had been abandoned by their caravanserai, she longing for freedom, he for wealth and power; and of course Jesus, whose encounter with god was dependent in his mind on the endurance of physical punishment. For him “Triumph over hardship was their proof of holiness.”
Crace creates an interesting spiritual logic for Jesus’s presence in the wilderness. For Jesus, god is the creator and guarantor of orderliness in the universe. His choice is to believe in cosmic-order rather than pandemonium. The wilderness with its harsh climate, its absence of edible plant-life and its general inhospitableness to life is God’s work yet to be completed. He just hasn’t got to it yet. It is “the edge of god's unfinished universe.” There Jesus could observe the divine creative process in action. This would be the sign he was looking for - his participation in the new creation. He wanted his god tangible.
Jesus’s intention is to isolate himself even within the isolation ward of his companions. He, like Moses and Elijah, wants alone-time with god. But his colleagues have different ideas. None of them has any interest in this tangible divinity nonsense. All they want are improvements in their situations not any sort of Sinaitic epiphany. So they annoy him, meddle in his solitude, harass him with trivial concerns, and interrupt his planned ritual.
In short, Crace’s Jesus is a religious snob who has no time for the worries and mundane concerns of the hoi pilloi, a type that would later be ridiculed as Pharasaic simply because they were punctilious in their observance of the law. But this is how he had been raised in a traditional Jewish household. These are the things that made him what he was - a devout servant of the Almighty who was keen to attract his favour - and what he hoped to become - a renowned preacher and interpreter of the law. Something considerably more than a village tradesman’s son.
They were a superstitious lot, Jesus forty days companions. When it suited, they had an eye for miracles and ‘angel births’ of unmarried mothers, the potency of dreams to shape reality, the demonic source of illness. He learns these things from them. But these are incidental to his real transformation, which has principally to do with his discovery that god, to the extent he exists, is present in them; that they are the source of his own re-creation; that without them his beliefs and ritual practices are useless, merely distracting self-delusions.
I think Crace’s intuition about the forty days is correct: Its power is profoundly transformative. In particular, its outcome cannot be anticipated. What is changed is an appreciation of what it means to exist as a person. The combination of isolation, physical hardship and an attitude of openness to change in the status quo produces not just change but changed expectations - about ourselves as well as about the world in general.
It is Jesus’s acceptance of the experiences of the others who are part of his forty days experience that is the catalyst for his new life in public. He ultimately knows himself, not the wilderness, to be the object of continuing creation; and the means of that continuing creation is other people, even the bad, crazy, and troubled ones, especially the bad, crazy, and troubled ones. This conclusion and the religious life it implies is as much a surprise to him as it is to his family and acquaintances. His forty days includes all previous biblical experiences as well - from Noah to Ezekiel, from purification to penance. In this sense at least Crace’s Jesus has become the entirety of the law and the prophets.
ericbutler555's review against another edition
5.0
A beautiful and in-depth imagining of a handful of random Middle Easterners who have each come to the desert for their own reasons and with their own burdens—one of whom just happening to be Jesus, who is cast as an almost psychotic outsider to both the group and the book. Dazzling. For this, John Updike called Crace "a writer of hallucinatory skill."